Hebrew media spreads fake Hamas video claiming to show deadly missile strike

Footage shows a train crossing just before a missile is launched across the border, destroying what appears to be a vehicle far in the distance. But no trains were running

A screen capture of a doctored video released by Hamas that falsely claimed to show an anti-tank missile attack that killed an Israeli man, on May 5, 2019. (screen capture: Twitter)
A screen capture of a doctored video released by Hamas that falsely claimed to show an anti-tank missile attack that killed an Israeli man, on May 5, 2019. (screen capture: Twitter)

A Hamas video that falsely claimed to show an anti-tank missile attack on an Israeli vehicle near Gaza on Sunday was widely circulated by Hebrew-language media, though the footage contained elements that were clearly not filmed during this week’s flareup of violence.

Gazan terrorists did shoot a Kornet anti-tank missile at Israeli civilian vehicle Sunday, killing 68-year-old Moshe Feder, but a train seen in the footage and the vehicle seen being hit in the video make clear that the clip is not of that incident.

The one-minute clip was released by Gaza’s Hamas rulers shortly after Feder was killed while driving along the Route 34 highway, near the community of Kibbutz Erez just north of the Gaza border. Hamas claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.

The video begins with text saying that the footage is of an attack on an Israeli military vehicle on Sunday. It begins with a shot of a train going by, and then cuts to another shot of a car being destroyed by an anti-tank missile.

However, there were no trains running on Sunday, as Israel Railways suspended service to the entire Ashkelon-Beersheba line, due to the escalation in the Gaza Strip.

In addition, the car Feder was driving when he was killed was white.

Nonetheless, the video was widely circulated by many Israeli media outlets, with some pundits offering various reasons why the shooter targeted a car and not the train and fretting over the fact that the train could have been hit, leading to a mass casualty event.

The scene of a car hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip near the Israel-Gaza border on May 5, 2019. (Noam Rivkin Fenton/Flash90)

Israel Railways spokesperson Matan Berkowitz confirmed to The Times of Israel that there no trains were operating near the border on Sunday.

“The last cargo or passenger train to pass through that area was on Friday afternoon, before Shabbat,” he said. “Since then, not a single train has passed through there.”

Moshe Feder, 68, was killed in an anti-tank missile attack on May 5, 2019. (Courtesy)

Shortly after the attack, the IDF acknowledged that it had failed to recognize the risks posed to Israeli drivers traveling on highways near the Gaza border.

Feder was survived by two children and his partner Iris Eden. Eden lost her first husband, Yashish Eden, in a deadly helicopter crash in 1997.

Known as the “helicopter disaster,” that incident saw 73 IDF servicemen lose their lives, when two aircraft collided near the northern border with Lebanon.

Feder was laid to rest in his hometown of Kfar Saba on Monday.

Most Popular
read more: